V-type tail

Citizen_Erased

I don't know that much about this type of tail but what are the pros and cons of it? Is it true that you can use the elevator and rudder function at the same time? It wouldnt be used with a computer type controller so it would work mechanically. This is the plane I am thinking on here

Thanks for any info at all.

coolwings

Quote ....The super strong blow-moulded polypropylene fuselage is virtually indestructible! ... unquote
I wouldn't touch that one .... plastic electric planes are far too heavy !
V-tails
Vee-tails are nice, they have mixed evevator-rudder on each servo ... one for each side. This of course makes micro servos mandatory if it is to fly right, (did the model in your link suggest standard size servos? If this is so the servos are 40 grams overweight in the model.)
And it mentions a 7-cell battery, this is way out of date, respectable electric flight begins at 8 cells and gets going at 10 cells. Even my ultra-slow indoor flying models use at least 8 cells.
Twinspeedy one uses 8 cells and twin engines...
http://www.greenhobbymodel.com/Image113.gif
total weight is about 450 grams ready to fly...what is the flying weight of the plastic body one you mentioned, I guess more than double?
This is what a state of the art vee tail Sandy Plus looks like...
http://www.greenhobbymodel.com/Image17.gif
carbon fibre boom tail fibreglass fuselage.
Their 7 cell recommendation causes 2 things. The 15 minute flight lasts 15 minutes because you are going so slow !
The 2nd reason for pushing a 7 cell pack is to fool you into buying the cheapest charger they can get, because the 7 cell chargers cost much less. But these chargers are useless for flying, and just about adequate for cars and boats, being either incapable of charging a decent pack, or just extremely slow when attempting it.
As far as mechanical mixing is concerned, are you sure this will be necessary? Many analogue radio transmitters nowadays have a vee-tail mix switch. So a computer radio is not necessary provided the correct analogue radio has been obtained. So no problem there.

mosizlack

Quote ....The super strong blow-moulded polypropylene fuselage is virtually indestructible! ... unquote
I wouldn't touch that one .... plastic electric planes are far too heavy !

interesting premis but i think you will find that its quite light !

after all - its made from the same plastic they use to make domestos bottles.... which are extremly light - when empty

the other thing to bear in mind is that the blue bird is beginner orientated and as such is cheap and cheerful hence the recommended cheap and plenty full battery pack ! Of course you could get one and " Pimp It " up by pulling out the stock bean can motor and poping in a brushless outrunner motor and 3 cell lipo battery, no problem with performance all be it a pricey model after the excercise is complete....

http://www.sussex-model-centre.co.uk/Virage-255.htm

I have seen one of these fly with 3 cell lipo and an AXI 2810 motor ....amazing....

coolwings

Aaaah but if you simply choose a lighter bird, then you won't have to "pimp it up".

And I disagree completely about your advice to a beginner to use lipoly batteries.....
they are still new fragile (relatively) compared with nimh.
Beginners crash, and a nimh has a metal case to protect it, the beginner will smash several lipoly batteries (more vulnerable due to their plastic cases which crush/puncture) during the inevitable bumpy landings while learning. Ninh can be recharged in 30 mins so can be reused quickly too, if a suitable charger is present.

I stick by what I said, the model should be light enough to fly with the power system supplied. No upgrades needed. And it should be light enough to climb at a reasonable rate, not cruising all over the sky climbing gently at a shallow angle.

This is all about power-to-weight, and also about badly selected components to "make it cheap".

Why sell a beginner brushless and lipoly to get a trainer to fly right? Only reason I can think of is that you bought the wrong trainer in the first place and are trying to correct a buying mistake.

There are lots of models out there that already fly right with a brushed motor (that costs €8 to replace if damaged in a crash )and a tough nimh battery that costs 1/4 the price of lipo. They climb at a good rate due to the fact they they weigh less, and they are also far stronger than plastic (epoxy fibreglass) and are fully repairable where plastic isn't.

Here is just one of them...
http://www.greenhobbymodel.com/DaisyOutfit.htm
that Daisy weighs about 700 grams ready to fly, compared to 1440 grams for the model the question was about. That makes the Sussex plane look 205% overweight.
The other model I showed- Twinspeedy - weight 450 grams ready to fly, in a comparison, that makes the first model for Sussex 320% overweight!

Weight x speed = momentum =damage in a crash landing.
Heavy models fly faster when going towards the ground.

Generally speaking if you double the weight you quadruple crash damage, and if you triple the weight you cube the damage. Damage to repair = money, trouble, and time not spent practising flying.
Beginners have rough landings -100% certain.

My advice still is to cut the weight in half and use 8 small cells, because it is stronger, flies better, and uses cheap to replace parts.

Coolwings
(who doesnt have any domestos bottles in his hangar, and whose jets weigh less than a glowfuel trainer)

Citizen_Erased

Ah , I have no Idea what happened just there but there are a few things that I should say. Firstly , It would not be the first model aeroplane coming into this house so batteries , servos , controllers and everything is already dealt with. I know the fact that is a plastic mono piece type thing could never match up to the balsa frame tradition but I dont have the time for that. The reason I was attracted to that plane was the reasonable price , inclusion of the moter and the very large wing span because I was hoping to not be constantly in powered flight. All I asked was about the v-tail mechanism , is it a no go or is nothing wrong woth it at all. Can you please verify wether or not the elevetor and rudder function can be used at the same time. As for the mixer in the controller , the one I will be using is old enough and does not have this ability. I will check the other one later.

edit ; the other one doesnt have it either and is only a 2 channel so isnt suitable anyway.

coolwings

Basically it goes like this...many electric flyers deplore the sort of electric crud that is still sold by mainly UK and US based hobby distributers. I am one of them.
Upgrades make it fly better, true, but they get away with far too much creativity in their descriptions as to how these models fly.
I would respectfully suggest that if you have already flown models you will feel the difference when you fly an overweight one.

The balsa fuselage is a memory for most leccie flyers now, (unless you are into kit building). Usually a powered glider now has a built up wing and an epoxy fibreglass fuselage, maybe with carbon reinforcing at stressed places. These are much lighter and stronger than what was available before. They cost about the same as the plastic models do, but they are a lot nicer to fly, and last longer. So I can't say IMHO that the price for it is reasonable, but I agree that it is not expensive.

The motor that is included is worth about €14, it turns an 8" folding prop. So I guess that a climb angle of 20-30 degrees is possible with it.

Vee tails are aesthetically pleasing to use. They look very nice first. The models that have them can do very flat yaw type turns which suits a thermal type model, and retains height loss during turns very well. I flew one (AeroNaut Twinspeedy) most of last summer, until a mid-air collision with a glowfuel Cub killed it off. I liked my Twinspeedy vee-tail enough that I decided to get another at a later stage. Haven't done it yet tho.

The cure for an older anologue RC which is without the mixer is to get a "vee-tail" mixer. They cost about € 20 for decent ones, and are the size of a speed controller. You fit this in the model, so if you do a 2nd vee=tail u need to buy another, where if u have the vee-tail rc the switch on the transmitter does them all.
Otherwise u need a mechanical mixer arrangement which involves one servo (elevator) physically pushing the 2nd (rudder) servo along rails towards the tail, to and fro, about 10mm. The electronic mixer is a better way than this, but it can be done mechanically. I actually have one of the mechanical mixer attachments, I guess they cost maybe €3-4, so they are a cheaper solution.

Did I mention that a vee tail looks really cool if you are flying inverted?

U ask about the rudder-elevator functions...they both work simultaneously. So if you use elevator (only), both move in and up/out and down. If u use rudder (only) they both go left/right. And any combination of rudder-elevator from the right hand radio stick produces both movements at the same time, in the correct proportion.

Here is a video clip of a vee tail that flies like my one did.
http://www.bungymania.com/videos/films/twinspeedy/twinspeedy1.rm
using ailerons, vee-tail, twin engines, it uses 4 micro servos, and 8 cells.

EDIT: Note that Twinspeedy has a power:weight ratio of 3 times better, so the video is not an indication of how the Sussex one will fly, but it does give an idea of what is possible with vee-tails. It was €79 in Dublin, and used €17 worth of motors.

mosizlack

Of course I wouldnt recommend a newbie to use brushless motors and lithium polymer batteries - god forbid !

I was meerly illustrating the possiblities. None of the electric flyers i know have left their models stock as they bought them, they always seem to want more power and longer flight duration. Thankfully for our hobby lipo technology is now being utilised in a safe manner in both fixed wing and helis

I have a GWS Formosa which in its stock form with a greared 380 motor and gws prop is a nice lazy model to fly, I have a himax geared brushless motor and apc e 11x7 prop on it now with 3 cell lipos and its a completly different model. flight times in the region of 20 minutes !

Electrics have come along way, I had a carl goldberg mirage onetime, it had a 9.6 volt buggy battery, a crap motor and the most finnicky folding prop ever, available motor time about 5 minutes.

but to get back to the topic, V Tails are nice and not too common so they will attract nice attention on the flying field.

Happy flying one and all !

Mo

coolwings

mosizlack wrote:

None of the electric flyers i know have left their models stock as they bought them, they always seem to want more power and longer flight duration. ...

Very true. We are actually very lucky, every year our gear is improving termendously, and the research budget is being paid by the big mobile phone/laptop/power tool companies. It seems to me that electric flight went up in performance by about 50% in the last 3 years alone.

mosizlack wrote:

I have a GWS Formosa which in its stock form with a greared 380 motor and gws prop is a nice lazy model to fly, I have a himax geared brushless motor and apc e 11x7 prop on it now with 3 cell lipos and its a completly different model. flight times in the region of 20 minutes !...

That is the point I was trying to make. Tho reading back I might have said it rather forcefully Take an average electric model, drop the weight, go up in voltage with good batteries, and it will fly like a dream.

mosizlack wrote:

but to get back to the topic, V Tails are nice and not too common so they will attract nice attention on the flying field.!...

Exactly - they get noticed, and everyone is asking "how does it work?" and so on. It is like deltas, everyone should do at least one, sometime, just for the fun of it, and to see how it goes...

Citizen_Erased

Is it possible to get an IC plane in a similar budget of about 150? Im not asking for links or anything just would it be worth it?

The twinspeedy has my attention at the moment , but would it be too weighted with the motors to achieve any substantial unpowered glide? And I'm also guessing the two engines feed off the same battery so does that not mean short flight times? And the one you flew , what method of mixing did it use?

coolwings

Citizen_Erased wrote:

Is it possible to get an IC plane in a similar budget of about 150?

Yes, here in Dublin ARF glowfuel highwings type go for €99 for basic ones, to €140 for the nicer ones. Engines to match (if you don't already have one) are €70 for bushed low compression (eg Thunder Tiger/OS) to €90 for ballraced high compression (eg MVVS)

Citizen_Erased wrote:

The twinspeedy ...... but would it be too weighted with the motors to achieve any substantial unpowered glide?

Depends:
2 x Speed 400s (2 x 73g=146g) weighs less than
1 x Speed 600 (basic S600=185g/fancooled J6421=230g)

battery for 2 x 400s = 8 x 45g = 360g
battery for 600 = 7 x 60g = 420g

so Speed 600 + usual battery = 605g to 650g
and twin 400 + usual battery = 506g
Which means that a twin setup weighs less than a single bigger motor and bigger battery. This is unlike glowfuel models where twin setups generally weigh more. It is one of the advantages of electric, tho I admit there are problems with electric that must be overcome too.

That assumes the commonly used motor-battery combos, but the setup I would use would weigh less at the same cost.

Half the timeI flew it from the flat club field as a power model.
The rest of the time I was flying on the mountain slopes. I would take off on power, then switch engines off and slope soar, using the power briefly to get back up faster than the slope lift would allow. So it was most of the time as a glider. I suppose about 4-5 minutes engine-on time in a half hour flight on the slope, and 6-8 mins of flying hard from the club field. The batteries would be only half empty on landings at the slope. Are you familiar with slope soaring?

Citizen_Erased wrote:

And I'm also guessing the two engines feed off the same battery so does that not mean short flight times? And the one you flew , what method of mixing did it use?

Yes, they are both on the same battery so as to get throttle identical both sides.
Flight time depends on how you do it.
All my friends used a 8x CP1700 battery (360g) with the standard brushed setup. They got longer flight times than me.
But I used the industrial CP1300 x 8 cells (280g). This was 80 grams lighter and could still provide the necessary 20 amps.
So my flight time (from the club - power on all the flight) was about 6-8 minutes, where they were 10-14 minutes.
But due to the lighter flying weight I had almost the vertical performance of brushless, while still using cheap motors. Less weight to haul up. Their's was less vertical performance, but for longer duration.
We never agreed what was best, but had plenty of arguing about it and playing with each others Twinspeedys.

EDIT
For the mixing - I had a computer radio so I just switched the V-tail function on myself. But the Twinspeedy is well thought out. AeroNaut suggest that it can be flown on aileron-elevator-throttle with an analogue radio. So you would use the twinveetail as elevator only plugged into the elevator receiver socket, turn using the ailerons, and then have throttle as normal. In this case you are flying the veetail with no rudder, but you don't miss it. And no mixer of any type is required.
It is a handy trick to know as it can be adapted to any veetail model that also has ailerons.

Citizen_Erased

Cool , I wasn't aware that the twinspeedy had ailerons. It seems excellent value for money.

coolwings

Upside, you can fly it without a mixer. Downside, you need 2 more wingservos But it does turn nicer with the ailerons.

Robbe did it and called it Turn On I think. That version had no carbon reinforcing included.

Aeronaut then produced either the same or slightly different mouldings, called it Twinspeedy, but they added a carbon fibre tube to reinforce both the wing and the fuselage. Even tho my 1st twinspeedy has bitten the dust, I pulled the CF tubing out and sanded the glue off them, so I got €15 of salvage materials from an otherwise dead foamie model , (as well as the motors/servos and so on).

You might consider using it as aileron-elevator as sort of v-tail cheating, but who's to know the difference? It will fly just as well, thats for sure.